Is there a good alternative to github pages? I need just a static website up.
- I have a domain.
- I have my site (local machine)
- And that’s all I have.
- I have a machine that could be running 24/7 too.
Is there a good alternative to github pages? I need just a static website up.
Hosting site in your local machine is tricky. It depends on how your ISP configured your network and most of the time you will be under CGNAT. Which means you will not have a unique public IP, but a shared one. Similarly your IP will be dynamic which will need additional configurations. Nowadays it is very difficult to host a site on local machine directly.
Edit: Checkout if your ISP provide unique IPv6 for your machine. This will not have issues of CGNAT, but you will have to setup DynamicDNS (DDNS) to accomate the changes in IP.
Edit: If there is CGNAT and you don’t have IPv6, then you need ‘NAT Hole Punching’. Usually services like Tailscale, ZeroTier, Amnezia, Innernet, v2ray, etc. are needed for that.
One thing you can try is Tailscale Funnel. Fair warning, bending your head around functioning of Tailscale is not trivial, and you will have to spend some time to properly understand and set it up.
If you prefer a simpler route, free hosting of a static site is your best bet.
Netlify is the go to solution if you are familiar with Git. I used to have my portfolio up there. Another option is, as you mentioned, Github Pages.
Vercel is the another common one people use. But it might be a little more tricky to get it working, because it focus on front end framework like Next.js.
Checkout Cloudflare Pages too. Very much similar to GitHub Pages, but with the performance and reliability of Cloudflare.
Heroku is another thing people used in the past. I think the free tier got limited nowadays.
Good luck with your adventures.
Depends on your ISP. In my case my IP hasn’t changed in the two years I’ve been with them so it was easy as setting up port forwarding in my router. Took a minute or two.
It’s not “very difficult” to self host. Arguably it’s one of the easier public things to self host. Takes an inexperienced IT enthusiast maybe 2 hours to setup. As for CGNAT, I am very happy that it was not a thing with my past and current ISPs. That would complicate things further of course.